| | Kracka Racing Surfcraft was established by Wayne Stoddart some 20 years ago in Newcastle NSW.
Wayne started shaping surfboards when he was 16 years old from his Mum & Dads home in Redhead. He sold boards to friends and locals from Redhead and then by chance, he was asked to shape a Nipper Board for a member of Swansea Belmont SLSC. He enjoyed the challenge of shaping this type of board and although initially, it was hard to convince anyone to purchase a board shaped by a 16 year old kid, by the age of 19 he had enough work to leave his employment as a carpenter with his parent’s business. He decided to set up his own business and came up with the catchy name of “Kracka” and he was on his way.
Still working from home, the orders started to increase and pretty soon the back yard shed was not able to hold his business. His parents owned and rented a house at Broadmeadow that had a business out the back and he convinced them to rent the business premises out to him.
 He continued to work alone for many years working 7 days a week until several years down the track Kracka was an established name on the market, and it was clear that this too would not cater for his growing number of orders. Still having no receptionist to answer calls, or any other staff, Wayne moved to his purpose built factory at Redhead where he started to see that staff may be needed to help fill the orders.
Kracka has continued from strength to strength from there to establish itself as one of Australia’s leading Surfcraft Manufacturers.
Demand for Wayne’s boards is increasing all the time and now goes throughout the world which is a huge achievement. Kracka’s success lies solely with Wayne and his relentless pursuit of the best board shapes, the best materials available and his willingness to listen and work with the competitors that ride the boards.
Wayne has an established reputation for keeping ahead of the market in design and technology and was the first Surfcraft manufacturer to see that a C & C machine would cut down on his shaping time and keep his design shapes on computer file that could be replicated each time with high precision. So around 7 Years ago, he actually built this machine himself from the ground up spending endless hours changing and modifying the machine to adapt to what he needed. Only now, are other manufacturers taking up this technology which Kracka developed way before the rest.
For Kracka in 2009, this has not changed, we are still keeping ahead of the market in design and technology with Wayne now developing and moving ahead with our Foam Sandwich boards which again will lead the market in performance, strength and design.
The person that owns and started Kracka Racing Surfcraft, is still the person that is responsible for making your boards and therefore, we can talk to you about your needs, change shapes of our boards to cater for individual needs such as Lay Down boards and at Kracka we do not just simply sell boards that are designed or copied off someone else. This practice seems to be the “trend” in today’s market whereby newcomers can simply just sell boards that they don’t even make themselves. How can they be responsible for their product or advise you on how the board was made….they cannot.
Wayne, still hands on with every board, was joined by his wife Nicole some 12 years ago in the office. Wayne & Nicole are the ground level people that are there dealing with the work and customer issues, with Wayne working daily in the factory and Nicole running the office to ensure that not only our boards are of a high standard, but our customer service is as well.
Our Kracka team of only three other staff members, make up our very small business with a very big reputation for making the best boards on the market. We all work very hard to ensure that this reputation is going to extend into the years to come.
At Kracka, we are not resting on our reputation, we are continually developing and streamlining our equipment with our goal being the same as our customer’s goals…….to win races…… and provide the best quality boards we can.
To do this, sometimes you will have to wait longer than with other manufacturers to receive one of our boards, we believe, as do many of our customers that the wait is definitely worth it.
Quality not quantity is our mission.
We are very proud that athletes such as Ky Hurst, Dean Mercer, Nathan Smith, Hugh Dougherty, Daniel Shade, Chris & Hayden Allum, Jacob Lollback, Josh Blair, Rhys Drury, Matt Poole, Alyce Bennett, Allira Richardson, Alicia Marriot choose Kracka for their boards.
Not only are our Racing Boards in high demand but Wayne has worked closely over the years with Professional Lifeguards to develop and improve the quality of the Rescue and Lifeguard boards offered to these people that work tirelessly to keep us safe on our beaches. APOLA recognizes Kracka as their preferred supplier of Lifeguard boards.
Kracka Lifeguard and Rescue Boards can been seen on beaches throughout Australia and some of our largest Councils and Surf Clubs choose our boards such as Gold Coast, Waringah, Waverley, Sutherland & Gosford.
In 2009, SLSA has now approved a Rescue Board that Wayne developed specifically for the APOLA Lifeguards for use on our beaches throughout Australia. This board has been the result again, of Wayne’s willingness to listen, work and change our boards to what our customers want. The lifeguards told him they wanted a lighter, faster and more easy to handle board than the heavy boards they had used and this is what Wayne then set out to develop. He designed each model, shaped each board, and trialed each board personally with the Lifeguards for several years before he got it just right.
This board as mentioned, has now been approved by SLSA and can only be purchased from Kracka.
We welcome you to try a Kracka board for yourself and see the difference that an ever growing team of supporters say:-
“Once you have ridden a Kracka, you won’t ride anything else”
We look forward to assisting you. | |
